


the permanence of smoke or stars

by wizened_cynic



Series: Dress Your Family in Kevlar and Armani [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That totally predictable fic about Emily's working mother angst. (Also, why I don't write blurbs for book covers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the permanence of smoke or stars

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write something else, but I wrote this instead. That's how it always happens, isn't it? Title from Galway Kinnell.

When Emily wakes up, it's already past noon. 

"Shit," she says out loud to no one in particular, unless you count Sergio who is dozing beside her pillow and briefly opens one eye long enough to register his disinterest before drifting back to sleep again. 

There's a note on the bedside table in Dave's chickenscratch handwriting. "Got it covered. Don't worry." She smiles at the smudge of ink that melds the two Rs together and the tiny blue thumbprint at the edge of the paper. 

On the other side of the page, it's a notice from Beezus's preschool, warning parents about recent outbreaks of scarlet fever in local daycares. It slays Emily sometimes, how she spends her days hunting monsters to keep her daughter safe, only to find out that there are a million other horrors out there that she is powerless to protect Beatrice against. 

(Beezus just wanted to know they wouldn't burn all her toys. "You can burn the ones I don't like," she told Dave, and after he assured her that nobody was going to be burning anything, he texted their entire conversation to Emily and in that moment Emily was irrationally, seethingly jealous of him.) 

Emily has worked this job long enough to know that you take one victory at a time, hold onto the good days as a balm against the bad ones, and there will be bad ones. The last four have been bad ones. They don't catch the guy. There are four dead girls in Lansing, Michigan and there will be more. The BAU will be back, in six months, maybe a year and a half.

Somehow, it makes her feel worse that she's had to miss Beezus's field trip to the zoo. Beezus made Emily promise that Emily would go with her and they even performed this elaborate pinky-swear ritual that somehow required jumping on the sofa, sticking out their tongues, and giving each other Eskimo kisses until Beezus felt convinced. 

She wonders how Hotch has done it all these years, but she knows it's different for him, because of Haley. She knows it's hard for him too, the way it's hard for JJ as well, and Emily realizes it must have been hard for her own mother too, but empathy is easier to come by than forgiveness. Maybe having Beezus is Emily's comeuppance for being the angry, rebellious kid that she was, or at least an apology. 

The house is still and quiet without a four-year-old's stream-of-consciousness babbling, and Emily actually manages to get Mudgie walked, Sergio fed, herself showered with ample time leftover to catch up on her reading. She is making herself a late lunch of leftover alphabet soup (the Bs are suspiciously missing) and a grilled panini when the car pulls into the driveway and she can hear her husband yelling, "Beatrice, _don't_ unbuckle yourself until the car's parked or I'm duct-taping you to your seat next time."

"Park faster, Daddy," Beezus says. Mudgie is already barking against the French doors in welcome, and when they finally open the dog nearly knocks over his second-favorite human in the world, the first being whoever happens to be holding the bag of kibble at any given time.

Sadly for Mudgie, Beezus doesn't reciprocate his enthusiasm and merely pats him on the head twice before racing over to where Emily is finishing the last of her soup. "Mommy!" she hollers, despite being five inches away from Emily. They really need to start working on Beezus's inside voice. "Guess what? I had the best day at the zoo!" 

"I know, honey," Emily says, trying to wrap her daughter in a hug but Beezus is vibrating with excess energy and having none of it. She also has something red and sticky smeared on her cheek, remnants of a lollipop Dave probably used to bribe her into submission. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it." 

"It's okay." Beezus climbs into the chair next to Emily. "I'm not mad," she says casually, and her words sting like paper cuts, careless but deep. Emily has to look away for a minute and wonder what's wrong, why doesn't her daughter miss her the way she used to miss her mother. "I _was_ mad but Daddy gave me ten dollars for the gift shop. We're only supposed to have five."

"I am only worth ten dollars," Emily says to Dave, who is staggering into the kitchen and looking every bit his age and then some. 

He gives her a pained look that says, _I hate kids_ , and heads towards the wine rack.

"Daddy needs wine," Beezus explains pleasantly, stretching her arms over her head. She is wearing a cardboard crown from the fastfood restaurant where they apparently had lunch and there is nothing princess-like about her. She is all benevolent dictator, with the occasional streak of tyranny. 

"Daddy needs lots of wine," Dave agrees and Emily can hear him rummaging through one of the drawers for the corkscrew. He comes back holding a glass of red and he sinks into the chair next to Emily. "Daddy could also use a cigar and a ten-year moratorium on field trips to anywhere. _Ever._ "

"Smoking is bad for you," Beezus says solemnly, and Emily swears that Dave positively glares at their four-year-old. Sooner or later Beezus is going to have to reconcile the fact that her father, despite loving her more than he loves life himself, will just _never_ forgive her for flushing half a box of his vintage double coronas down the toilet after learning at school the perils of smoking. Emily was there when it happened and let's just say, she didn't even curse nearly as loudly or as colorfully when she was in labor. 

Dave puts his hand over his eyes and says, "I love you so much, Beezus. I just need to remind myself sometimes." 

"Okay," Beezus says agreeably, taking her father's love for granted the same way she takes everybody else's. Emily often finds herself wondering how it is possible she gave birth to somebody so sure of her place in the world, so confident in the knowledge that she is worthy of love and admiration, fearless against things that are bigger and more complex than she understands. It took Emily almost forty years and meeting Dave to get there, whereas Beezus practically has a doctorate in it and she's only four. 

"I think we did something right," Emily says to Dave, forgetting for a minute that he isn't privy to her thoughts, and he gives her a small smile over the rim of his wineglass.

"Mommy! Mommy! Listen to me!" Beezus demands, getting onto her knees now to show that she means business. "I want to tell you all about my day at the zoo." 

"I'm listening," Emily says, setting the panini down and nudging the plate over to her husband, who gratefully accepts.

"I saw elephants and zebras and there were blue frogs --- did you know frogs could be blue, Mom? I always thought they were green except for when they are brown, but those ones are toads --- and I pet an alpaca even though I didn't want to at first because it was kind of stinky. Wasn't it stinky, Daddy?"

" _Very._ "

"But it turned out to be really friendly and I fed it some hay. And then, and then, do you want to hear the best part?" 

"Of course I want to hear the best part," Emily says, and she can tell from the way Dave is smirking that this is going to be good. 

Beezus claps her hands and then presses one against each cheek, her mouth dropping wide open in a delighted O. "And then when we were about to get back on the bus, a bird _pooped_ on Jocelyn." She dissolves into peals of laughter and Emily finds herself chuckling helplessly and looking at her husband as if to say, _What the fuck? THAT'S the best part?_

"It was really funny," Beezus says. 

"Not for Jocelyn, I bet," Emily says. 

"Not for Jocelyn," Beezus concedes. "She cried, even after Ms. Carol cleaned the poop off her hair. Nobody wanted to sit with her on the bus because of the poop and that made her cry some more so I sat next to her even though I didn't want to but she was really sad and I wanted to be nice. But because I was nice to Jocelyn, Daddy had to sit next to Stevie and he didn't like it."

"Boys are stupid," Dave says. "Especially four-year-old boys." 

"How politically correct of you," Emily comments, but she kisses him anyway, because somehow she managed to marry someone who pets alpacas and wears Italian loafers to the zoo and volunteers in her place to wrangle fifteen four-year-olds so that she could sleep in, and she's going to let a little gender discrimination slide if she has to. 

"Seriously, this kid kept banging his head against the window. I asked him why he was doing that, and he said it was because it was fun. Then every other boy started doing it. I know they improve with age, but god, are they stupid when they're four." 

"Boys _are_ stupid," Beezus says. "Except for Jack. And Daddy. And Uncle Aaron and Derek." 

"What about Spencer?" Emily asks.

Beezus considers this. "He's kind of stupid sometimes. He made Henry cry when he said that dinosaurs probably all had grey skin and brown and didn't come in other colors. That is pretty stupid. Of course dinosaurs have colors. Hasn't he ever read _books_?"

Dave sets down his glass and says, "Beezus, that is the smartest thing I have ever heard in my life. Would you mind saying it again so that I can record it on my phone and share it with everyone I know?" 

" _Dave_ ," Emily says, but she's laughing too hard, especially when Beezus says, "Sharing is nice. We're _supposed_ to share." 

That night, at bedtime, when Emily reads Oh the Places You'll Go for the umpteenth time, Beezus turns to her and says, "Someday I will go many places, like you, Mom." 

"I know you will," Emily says softly, running her fingers through Beezus's hair and rubbing her thumb against the spot behind Beezus's ear, which makes Beezus sigh in content. It was something Emily discovered when Beezus was seven weeks old and muddling through the period of purple crying. For all his brilliance, Dave never figured out the only way to calm the baby down. Even now, it's still a secret between Emily and her daughter. 

"Sometimes it will get cold and then I will wear a coat." 

"That's very sensible," Emily says. "You could also dress in layers. Layers work beautifully." 

Beezus suddenly presses her face against Emily's stomach and the unexpected weight of her knocks Emily back a little. "I was really mad at you today," Beezus says into Emily's shirt. " _Really_ mad. So mad. I told Daddy to take you to jail because you lied. But Daddy gave me ten dollars instead and told me not be mad at you." 

"It's all right if you were mad at me, Beezus. I was mad at myself too, and I'm really sorry I didn't keep my promise." 

Emily doesn't say _couldn't_ , which is what her mother would've said, if her mother had taken time to tuck her into bed at all. Instead she wraps her arms around her daughter's body and tries to remember the baby that she once was, the way how when Beezus nursed she would place her tiny palm against Emily's breast, fingers open and closing over Emily's heart. It's a distant memory but one that Emily carries with her, one that Beezus will have no recollection of. _Please forgive me when I disappoint you,_ Emily remembers whispering to her daughter like a prayer. _Please still love me like this when I do._

"I'm done being mad now," Beezus tells her, rolling back onto her other side to face the six billion stuffed animals who share her bed. "Can you read The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog?" 

"I'm really worried about the dietary habits of that pigeon," Emily says to Dave later. He's wearing his glasses as he proofreads his latest manuscript, and it's funny how they're practically this old married couple and the sight of Dave tilting his glasses down to look at her still makes Emily want to jump him. 

"I'm worried it wants a puppy," Dave says dryly. "A puppy would _eat_ it."

"I guess the pigeon's parents will have to deal with it." 

"I think the pigeon is emancipated. So it can handle its own royalties."

"Do you think the pigeon is richer than you?'

"I think the pigeon is much more accomplished than that. We're two FBI profilers with forty years of field experience between us and we just had an entire conversation revolving around the pigeon." 

"We lead ridiculous lives," Emily says. She sits down next to him and he shifts reflexively so that she can lay her head on his shoulder as she points out to him the gratuitous use of semicolons in his draft.


End file.
